


hope in the darkness

by TaylorJ



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Military, Artist Geno, Epistolary, Fisting, M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 12:24:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10437699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaylorJ/pseuds/TaylorJ
Summary: My dearest Sidney, I hope most of all that you remember my promise. That I will join you when this fight is over and I can be a free man by your side forever.Your Evgeni*Alternate ending available; read notes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Pens Monthly for _[all four](https://pensmonthly.tumblr.com/post/157862528265/march-prompts)_ prompts.
> 
> A thousand and one thank you's to my awesome beta, Alaina! You are solely responsible for the alternate ending because I toyed with it and toyed with it but it wasn't until you went "so what's been going on?" That I knew how it needed to be finished. Thank you for such a quick turn around as well.
> 
> Docbeeski, you were the cheerleader this story needed. From literally doing all my World War II research so I didn't have to and picking out the summary, you are the reason this story exists. 
> 
> Story warnings!:  
> 1\. This entire thing is handwaved; that's my right as an author and I'm sticking to it. None of the letters had to go through censorship because I say so.  
> 2\. This story takes place during World War II, therefore there are references to nazis, concentration camps and violence. I stuck away from graphic descriptions as best as I could but there are some along the way. Just be wary. 
> 
> If there's anything else you think I should warn for, please reach out to me.
> 
> Original title was "But Not With Haste" from Mumford & Sons song, "Not With Haste" but listening to their albums again today demanded a title change. New title is now "hope in the darkness" from Mumford and Sons song "Ghosts That We Knew". It fit so much better… alas, I seriously just played all of my Mumford & Sons albums on shuffle while writing this. Almost all of their music fits in some way or another.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to avoid the traditional ending, you can skip to the second chapter at the ---*

Sidney,

It's been one month since I last saw you, caked in mud and washed up along the shore, surely dead for the taking. I remember when I touched you how your eyes lit up with hope, how your lips turned up in a smile so beautiful. I remember taking you to the medical tent and hovering over your bedside while the doctor stuck you with an IV and ran every test he could out here.

I hope this letter receives you well in Canada. At least I hope that is where your guard has sent you so that you can heal from the brink of death. You deserve warmth and safety, now and always.

The war has not been easy, as you know. We've been lucky to stay mostly where you washed ashore, not too close to the front lines of battle. I know this war is a necessary evil; the only way out is to fight our way through this dictator. I do wish it did not cause so much death and destruction.

My hope is that I can come visit you once this is all over. My Sergeant claims that we may be here for years to come, fighting. I do hope you won't forget me in that time. I don't think that I could forget you.

Do you remember me visiting in the medical tent? Caring to your wounds when the medical staff were asleep, or too busy with others just sick enough to need treatment. I remember sitting by your bedside while you shivered through the hypothermia, holding your hand through the worst of it until your fever broke. I remember your eyes glowing by soft light from the moon streaming through the drapes while we shared soft whispers, learning all about your family and your life back home. Is Taylor well? Your parents? I do hope you're with them biding time and gaining strength.

The saddest day of this war for me has been the day I watched you leave. Not leaving my family and coming to fight. Leaving the only home I’ve ever known behind. It was you walking out of my life after joining it for barely a minute. I shall never forget the days I spent by your side, huddling warmth back into your body and mending appendages not meant to be so mangled. Those moments felt stolen and sacred. I miss you so much.

I hope you are healing well and resting until the time when I can join you at that wonderful lake in Cole Harbour. I can still picture it just as you described, barely cleared from the woods, houses tucked away with long worn paths leading down to the water. The wooden docks floating gently with the soft breeze… I hope you took my advice for a swing or a rope for with to jump into it. I imagine it must be warmer than the water you washed in on which still surrounds my back, cold and wicked as it turns.

My dearest Sidney, I hope most of all that you remember my promise. The feel of my lips against yours. Catching and then sliding again, the feel of my tongue tracing patterns on your own. That is my promise to you. That I will join you when this fight is over and I can be a free man by your side forever.

Your Evgeni

 

\---

 

Sidney,

The months have been so long and so cold here, dreary with heavy rain and fog that never seems to leave. I've battled just the same as the others, my barracks finally on the move to help secure the front lines, following behind our tanks as they make pathways through the land towards the wicked dictator that's the cause of all this persecution. How one man could be so evil as to destroy an entire people… my young mind just cannot understand.

I've been imagining your face more and more, sketching the angles of it onto corners of my pad so I can see you still. Your crooked smile and sharp jawline. My Sidney, I'm afraid you're emblazoned in my mind and yet something I'm starting to wonder if I've dreamed into existence. I know you were real mostly because of everyone here who remembers your laugh, who remembers talking to you and taking care of you. You're a masterpiece that somehow exists in this cruel world and I need to make my way back to you.

I think of you late at night, when the others have rounded up some fresh women to pleasure their needs and I am tucked away with only my hand as a reminder of human pleasures. I fantasize of your lips, so pink and round and soft, gently sliding over my own while your strong, heavy body braces above me. I fantasize of your shoulders, your arms not chiseled but so perfectly muscled with strength coiled in every atom. Your calloused hands perfectly holding my cheek while I thrust my manhood up against your body. I imagine a perfect V, though I regret not getting to see, where you jut from your body and meet my own, our members cradled together and reaching peak with our mouths still moving in breathless kisses.

I dream of you at night. Those are the mornings I wish to never wake from.

I have not received any letters from you but I imagine that's because of the move. Our mail system is barbaric at best. I am simply glad I can reach out to you so that you shall know I still live in this world, waiting to come to you.

I received one letter from my mother in all this time stationed so far from home, not long after you were transported. She told me stories about her days since I've been gone, how she makes so much food that goes to waste because I'm not there to eat. She made my favorites for the holidays and her and father and Denis all ate it while toasting a glass in my honor. They say they're proud of me for fighting, that what we're liberating is worth all this.

I wish for the day when I can see you again. When I can write that I've been discharged and that yours will be the first home I see again. I miss my mama and papa but you came to mean so much, my Sidney. You are my goal at the end of this fight. You're why I'm still fighting and why I haven't given in to the mortal dangers I am facing. I'm confident you could get me through the hell of this battle, as long as it may continue for. As long as you're waiting for me at the end.

Your Evgeni

 

\---

 

My dearest Sidney,

I'm living in a nightmare. The stalemate between my line and the next and the days I've spent longing for you, only sleep has been my reprieve but it's so far and few between. The things I've had to do for my country are beginning to weigh heavily on my shoulders. I need this war to be over before I, too, am one of the casualties.

I miss talking with you, even with your terrible Russian accent. I still remember finding you on the beach, my gun cocked at the ready as I approached. You were shivering and so blue, even while unconscious on the shoreline. I knew just by looking at you that you were safe. That you were the home I've waited my whole life to find. I remember the jolt you took when I tapped you with the barrel of my gun and the hushed English that spilled out of your mouth. Admittedly, I know very few English words but I'm thankful every day I knew enough to not shoot you. After having you in my life, I can't imagine how I lived before.

I have begun having nightmares of you lying on that beach. Multiple times over I've dreamt that I was too late, or that I shot without seeing your face. I've had dreams of battle and moving through the decimated units to find your face belonging to one of the men I shot. I pray nightly that you're safe and don't wonder how much I miss you.

Sergei, my bunk mate, he tells me that I sound like a love-sick puppy. He may be right. I've done little else than sit in my bunk sketching your face or mimicking your laugh just so I could see it again, hear it again. He often talks of his Ksenia at home and yet complains that I talk of you more often. Maybe it's because it's new whereas he has had time to make a family with her at home, but I know in my heart there's an ache that won't be filled until I see you again.

So maybe it is all love. Maybe I do love you. I just need to hear from you.

Your Evgeni

 

\---

 

Sidney,

You promised you'd reply and yet here I am, a year removed from our shared kiss, no wiser for how you are. I still blame the mail system though it could also be my handwriting. I know you must work to translate my letters, the written Russian so much harder for you than the verbal, but I had hoped it wouldn't take this long. I will write you still — I will write you always — and maybe someday you shall respond.

A year and then some since you've gone and I've been reassigned to more scouting missions, working in much the same way that led me to come across you on the shore, but it is an assignment that allows me to avoid the front lines. It's been scary to walk alone along the city streets of towns we've run the Germans out from or with only one other at my back, searching for any defectors or Nazi spies.

I've been mostly safe although there was one incident where I was thankfully not alone, scouting the next city we were to be moving through. We ran into some German soldiers, drunk with liquor and fine women, who opted to fight when they noticed us. It was dodgy and a bullet did graze my arm, but I was not harmed any further. I required a few stitches once we made it back to our post and alerted the Sergeant of the soldiers' whereabouts. It's turning into a rather beautiful scar but until then it's been red-tinged and oozing a small amount of blood.

I am still so grateful that even while we've moved we've remained far from the true battlefront. We've supported escape missions and liberations as we've moved further away from the water but I do not fear for my life. I am confident still that I will see days beyond this war, hopefully wrapped tightly in your arms.

We recently received a new mail shipment, loaded to the brim with care packages and letters. My mama sent me a sweater she had knit and a photograph of her and my papa so that I can hold it close to my heart when the ache becomes too much. Mikhail's mama sent him piroszhki and vatrushka; they did not last long in this place. Sergei's wife sent him new photos of his girls and Nikolay's parents sent him an antenna radio. We've all been huddling around it at night to listen to music or stories the broadcasters have been playing. It's certainly helped to lighten the crushing mood when we have lost comrades to this fight.

My Sidney, I hope you are well and that you think of me often. If it's even half as much as I think of you then I would be on your mind all day and night.

Your Evgeni

 

\---

 

My love,

I am beginning to fear that the mission of sending you back to the Canadians was unsuccessful. The men who escorted you claim no such thing, but they've always been quiet and keep to themselves from the majority of us. Or that, perhaps, an attack on the Canadians left you stranded and unable to be sent home. I worry late at night that that would explain so much of why I've never heard from you. These thoughts have been keeping me awake just as much as the rest of my nightmares.

I like to believe that we managed to create some sort of connection thanks to all the time we spent talking through your recovery. There is the feeling of a fire just next to my heart that I think would feel damp and cold if you were not still alive. I feel attached to you in a way that makes me think I would know if you were not still breathing. My heart aches and aches but your fire still burns within me.

I hope you've spent the recent holidays surrounded by family and friends, a fireplace burning and the lake just outside the door. Taylor should be a young lady by now and I hope you treat her as such, keeping her young male callers at bay.

I hope you've healed enough to have taken advantage of the summer weather, though I know it's long gone by now. I remember you telling me how the water was your first love, growing up fishing and swimming everyday with the lake as your backyard. Whenever we have passed a waterway my heartbeat has kicked, letting me know it's thinking of you just as much as my head.

I imagine that with the passing year, your strength has built enough that you're no longer a little too thin. I hope you have been able to lace up your skates and grab a stick for a game of shinny if the water has frozen over enough to allow. I do wish someday I could take in that sight for myself. I remember your talk of the Canadian superpower of Montréal but I think you will quickly note the superiority of the Russian skating technique simply by playing one on one with me.

Is Taylor still dressing in your papa's old pads so you can shoot at her? I hope you've taken it easy and let her gain the confidence a young woman should have by lofting shots instead of pelting her with all your might.

Until I can write you again,

Your Evgeni

 

\---

 

My dearest Sidney,

Our newest mail shipment has arrived, just in time for the extra daylight of spring. My mama sent me pastries that I've managed to keep from the men, though I had to bribe Sergei with some to keep him from ratting me out. No one else received much worth mentioning except for Sasha, who got a letter from a girl he knew back home. I know that seems uninteresting but he shared the contents with much of the base… explicit photography of this girl from only the neck down.

I must admit that I looked at the images and she is beautiful. The gray tones of her skin would be a warm pink in color and her hair would be golden like the sun. Her bosoms small and perky, nipples taught against her skin as she holds one breast in a hand. Her other hand caught in a mess of curls below her belly button, her hip cocked and one leg extended. It was very erotic, I must say, and it left me longing to imagine what an explicit photograph from you would look like.

It would be only fair that your face is included in the photograph, your cheekbones flushed with color and your eyes blown wide. Your hair would be tussled from running your fingers through it. Your lips, so full, parted in an open pout. I am unsure I'd need to see any more of your body for the image to reach the same level of eroticism as her photograph.

I can imagine that the veins in your hands, raised from your skin and thick with red hot blood pumping through your body, crawl up your arms in much the same manor, fading to smooth skin just above your elbow. Your strong shoulders carved to fit solidly beneath my hands, giving way to a jutting collarbone, trapping light in the crevasses of your skin. It's only my imagination that leaves the center of your chest covered in a pink flush that fades halfway down your torso, nipples pert and dark against otherwise pale skin. Your pecks would be barely chiseled from the rest and muscled lines in your stomach only visible when you gasp as I touch you.

I remember just from carrying you to the medical tent that your legs are thick with ropey muscle. I imagine them to look much like the statue of David in Italy, practically carved from the same stone. Bubbling out from the tops of your thighs on your backside would be the most magnificent part of you, an ass so large that my hands, big as they are, would struggle to hold just one cheek. An ass so well worked that the muscles would be visible even there, dimples in the cheeks that my thumbs could catch on if I were to slide my hands up to hold it from underneath.

Rounding back to your front side just above your hips, there would start a deep crease that directs the eye, hand, tongue, to your thick penis. A trail of hair from just below your belly button would disappear into the dark nest that surrounds it. Your manhood would match the rest of you, making up in girth what it lacks in length. So wide my fingers would just brush my palm if I were to hold it in my grip while swollen with your blood.

I cannot say that it does not affect me to think of you this way. My own manhood strains in my pants, begging to be touched. I like to think of your callused hands touching the soft skin behind my sack, rubbing wet, slick vasilene across my entrance to ease way for a finger to slip inside. I know you'd be gentle but your rough skin would catch against my hole and make me shiver and shake. I imagine working myself up to be able to impale myself on your fist, rocking your whole hand inside me so that I feel full enough to reach the peak of pleasure. Sometimes I imagine your manhood filling me with your family seed before you plug me with your fist so that my body soaks in all that yours gave.

I've tested my limits myself, four full fingers covered with grease to reach the bright spot inside that lights up my whole body with pleasure. It would surely be easier to have your hand doing the hard work for me, pumping in and out and setting me on fire. I imagine your full fist would be the equivalent of my four fingers, if not just slightly thicker so that I'd be done almost instantly, spent entirely.

I have tried to sketch you just as I've depicted but I haven't been able to capture all your glory. I fear nothing will do you justice and that the real you will blow away any photograph I can imagine.

Sidney, I did not intend to write a letter full of such filth but it excites me no less, imagining your naked body to pleasure my own. I hope you think of me much in the same way and know that I'll be ready, whenever we shall see each other again, for you to claim me in your name.

Your Evgeni

 

\---

 

My Sidney,

My days are getting weary with the weight of this war. The commonplace violence and shear graphic imagery is not settling well in my mind. I can't seem to escape the visions of the people we've come across in concentration camps we've liberated. Dead or alive they seem absolutely no different, as though skin was stretched solely over a skeletal figure with no muscle or soft tissue between it and bone. The pure difference has simply been whether a person opens their eyes when you touch them or not.

I've sketched some of their faces on paper. We have so much charcoal from the camps that I've managed to stash and use it from time to time. The images are haunting and yet I see them even if they are not on paper staring back at me.

The only way I seem to remove myself from night terrors is by thinking of you. I cannot wait to come to you once my part in this battle is over. It's been two years since I saw you and yet I cannot seem to stop thinking about you. I yearn for the life we will share.

I figure we could settle down in that nice town, close to your parents. Maybe with a view, and dock on the lake ourselves? I think I would like that, sitting in a boat with you on the water just lounging while you take care of the day's catch. I think it would be nice, side by side doing everyday mundane tasks. I'm not a very good cook but I'd love to make you dishes from my mama's home so I can share with you some of the Russian heritage I love so much. Maybe one day, far off into our future, we could find a way to adopt a child. Or a dog; I'd settle for a dog.

I often wonder if you've gone on dates with anyone since you've been home. I know your first love, a sailor with you on the boat-wreck you washed ashore from, is no longer here with us. I hope you have been able to grieve for him… I know from our talks that losing him weighed heavily on your heart. I know you said you felt like there should've been some way you could have saved him… To me, it's a miracle that even you survived. If you had managed to save someone else in the process I think I'd have to label you a god among men.

One of my recent scouting missions led us into the heart of a city, directly to a drive-in theater. I often think of how much culture I have missed while fighting, and if there have been any pictures I would have wanted to see. I think it would be fun to go to a picture with you, huddled close together in the front seat of the automobile with one milkshake, two straws, on the tray hanging off the door.

Thinking of our life together after the war is such a reprieve from my daily thoughts. I don't tend to think of my parents' home much, though I still miss them terribly. I seem to think of my life with them and my brother as my past. People I knew before this war changed me. I like to think of all the good I can do with the knowledge I have unfortunately gained while fighting here and I can only picture being by your side as I do it.

Try to catch a few extra fish while you are waiting for me. This way our first few days can be spent holed up in bed with no worries beyond ourselves.

Your Evgeni

 

\---

 

My dearest Sidney,

My time in this battle may soon be coming to an end, thankfully. My Sergeant has discussed with me plans for discharge and the possibilities of when it may occur. There's no guarantee but I'd be a fool to say I'm not anxious to get out. I would be shipped home to Russia first, but I'd travel to you as soon as humanly possible.

I miss my mama and papa so much, I can't imagine getting to see them again. They must know, I think, how often I've thought of them through all of this, and that the strength and courage they instilled in me during my upbringing is what has allowed me to accomplish my part of this fight. Being drafted was not my choice and having to serve has been pure hell, but everything they taught me while I grew has allowed me to come out the other side of this.

There's talk of a few more missions before I can leave, some general scouting in new areas where most of the troops I'm with will be moved to, but a bunch of us will be sent home. Mikhail and Sergei and Sasha, my closest friends in this strange land, will be a part of my journey home. First we will travel to Saint Petersburg for our official discharge and then I'll be on my own to make my way to my family in Magnitogorsk.

My plan is to gather up my things from my parents' home and then set across the country by rail to the dock yards. I aim to sail to the western coast of Canada and continue on all the way to Cole Harbour. I remember you describing to me the placement as it would be on a map, and I know there will be a long journey ahead, but my love I'm so anxious to see you.

You're still as you were two full years ago in my mind's eye. I can only imagine how you've changed since then. I wonder how harsh your jawline may be now, if it has been softened by the home-cooking you've endured or if age has left it just as sharp as I remember. I bet your cheeks are plump with good health and colored natural by the warm sun, your ruby red lips still full around a crooked smile. I miss your eyes, brown and then gold and then green in the light. I still see them glowing as they did when the setting sun would shift just enough and light you up like you were a jewel to be harvested. I can't wait to see you now and take in how much you will have changed.

I have not changed much since you last saw me. I may be a little thinner, in fact, as the food rations have lessened over the years. I'm unsure if it was poor planning or if the battles have just gone on far longer than initially thought, but our meals were cut from three a day to two and we've begged for scraps from townsfolk as we've moved through. I have not shaved in months. Thankfully showers have still been something we can come by and I've used them as frequently as I've been able. I hope you will still recognize me and that I will still look as good to you as I did when we met.

I hope you remember my promise, Sidney. And I hope you know I am coming, if you can hold on just a little longer. I'll be there soon.

Your Evgeni

 

\---*

 

Dear Sidney,

I found your name and information hidden inside some of Zhenya's personal affects. I regret to inform you that he was killed by gunfire during a recent scouting mission. He was a great man and I am sorry for your loss, as well as my own.

I've been collecting his personal belongings to send back to his parents' home but I felt that you should have these. He spent a lot of time talking about you and, as I now see, drawing you.

It took me a very long while to remember who you were exactly, looking through his drawings. The Canadian navy officer who appeared like a mirage on the beach. He was absolutely smitten with you at the time; constantly telling me stories that you shared with him. I am sad I didn't see how much you meant to him while he was here. I've also included a ton of letters he had drafted for you but hadn't yet sent. I know that if I were in your shoes, I'd want these items to hold onto him with.

Zhenya was an incredible human being, full of mirth and good heart. I wish you had been able to spend more time with him. You had a great man who was dedicated to you. I hope you look at these drawings and remember him fondly and live for him as he would have for you.

From Sergei Gonchar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr!](http://taylorj8771.tumblr.com)


	2. Alternate Ending

Sidney!

This is it, my Sidney! I do not have much time to write but I must let you know that I have been discharged by my Sergeant and our small group is ready to head back to Russia. I needed to tell you that I will come to you, as soon as I am able. Please keep an eye on the horizon, as I will travel to your home immediately after I spend a few days with my parents. I cannot wait to be with you.

Forever Your Evgeni

 

\---

 

Evgeni,

Please know you have my deepest apologies. I cannot believe it has taken two and a half years for me to finally know how much you've thought of me. I was so well mended after your care that the Canadian Navy let me choose whether to be discharged or to stay. My heart had hurt so much at the time that I had chosen to stay.

My mother collected all of your letters for me, never once opening them. She only passed them to me when your latest, news of your discharge, came through. She claims she had forgotten about them while I was deployed and was too excited with my homecoming to remember.

I do remember everything about you and everything we discussed. I am anxious to see you. I have thought of you often while hard at work with a new crew on a new ship off the coastline of Italy. You were a bright spot in the solemnity that had suddenly surrounded my life, a reminder that good things exist in this world while I grieved for what I had lost.

It felt good to stay out there and get back on the water. It helped me to feel as though Jack was still with me, giving a blessing for the life I would carve for myself once I finally came home. I was only just discharged a few months ago and had to travel some in Canada before I was able to return to Cole Harbour for good.

The lake here is just as I remembered it, and Taylor has indeed grown into a fine young woman. I cannot wait to introduce you to everyone and show you everything here. I very much would like to settle in around the lake with you. And I absolutely love dogs.

I'll be waiting on the porch swing, the one we talked about, do you remember? I will sit there, watching where the drive meets the main road, for any sight of you. I will come running once I see you again.

Your Sidney

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://taylorj8771.tumblr.com)


End file.
